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All Level Designer Duels in history
Sup, everyone. This page marks a large overview over all completed regular SM63 duels in history (this means: levels were completed and results were posted, and there wasn't any extraordinary house rule such as making 1-hour levels). All special and unfinished duels will have an own page. This page will be updated whenever a duel is finished. DUEL 1: MessengerOfDreams vs. Venexis Theme: Space Started: September 30th, 2011 Levels finished: October 26th, 2011 Result post (November 15th, 2011) MoD’s level: Niveau Victorieux Galaxy A large platformer-themed level within space and traversing various forms of landscape. Got 16th place in the WITBLO11 and is still known as one of the most remarkable platformers mixing different themes, and flows very nicely. If you can find the secret pipe, you’re rewarded with a short foray through LDC history until the 15th LDC. Ven’s level: Alone in the Universe / It's Rocket Science This is hardly worthy to be called a SM63 level, it's a thing of its own. It’s away from the Mario universe, therefore it’s something very underrated until today yet original. It’s also a very peculiar approach to the Space Theme given the settings of a jungle-background, but the tiles forming rockets. Unmistakable and original. This was the first ever duel in history. MessengerOfDreams won the first duel after some time of procrastination with judgings and Volkove being hired as a 5th judge, with a score of 15.95 to 15.55. Three judges went with identical scores, and Volkove’s 15.25 over 13.75 made the difference in the end. DUEL 2: GMDragon11 vs. DarkBlaze Theme: Forest Started: December 25th, 2011 Levels finished: January 12th, 2012 Result post (April 15th, 2012) GMDragon’s level: Mystery in the Night Forest The title holds what it promises (apart from the typo, lol). Although not being very innovative, it satisfies with a very solid structure of a red coin hunt, a good amount of varied and partially difficult platforming, a nice amount of coins to grab and a few moments of surprise like the cave section or the lava field in the screenie. DarkBlaze’s level: Galactic Grove This one took the forest into the space, with the concept of a semi-linear path (collecting silver stars and entering a pipe back to an area above the start), rather sparse and uniform, slope-ful grass tiling and accurate decoration, a classic DB-trademark platformer with good use of blocks and moving stuff. After both duelants managed to finish their levels, it took a total of four months to reveal the results in April 2012, and it was another rather close victory with GM winning 14.35 over 14.08. There was some controversy in the scores, as Nwolf rated GM by 3.85 points than DarkBlaze, while MoD wanted it to be the other way round. Unfortunately, no judgings have been posted. DUEL 3: MegaR vs. NanTheDark 330px|left Theme: Quick Freestyle Started: January 20th, 2012 Levels finished: February 2nd, 2012 Results post (March 24th) Mega's level: Mushroom Hill Well, that’s a kind of ordinary Nintendo-style level, but it pretty well displays Mega’s strength of going simple and making small levels be fun. Mushrooms are fairly present, and the level follows a clean linear structure, but it could have some more pep on the part with battery-tiles, and a bit more décor. Still not a bad play. Nan's level: Totally Cool This snow-themed level just shows how Nan has a fresh take on things (Tier list quote). It’s mostly simple, but in a good way of simple, it’s mostly linear, but it has some path splits, and it puts up some nice stuff like thowmps or breakable blocks. It just missed that one extra-mile thing to win this duel, but it’s always like a nice book on a rainy day. After another time of delay with judgings, MegaR triumphed very closely with 14.66 to 14.51, while the hundreth digits came from Nwolf’s and Linkdroid’s judgings. It was Linkdroid’s only time to appear as a judge. DUEL 4: BrawlerEX vs. Karyete Theme: Cave Started: January 21st, 2012 Levels finished: February 11th, 2012 Results (April 1st, 2012) Brawler's level: Sprite Spelunking This is one of many levels of Brawler showing incredible potential and awesome gameplay possibilities, but missing the final ambition to conclude it to the end. It starts with a very clever concept of non-linearity (riding a platform down and up to hit a switch), and its graphics are lovely mostly but sometimes also a bit flattened, but overall it’s still very well-made. (Note: at the point where it looks like you’re stuck due to switch bricks, you need to find a hidden pipe) Karyete's level: Split Chrome Cavern One of Karyete’s beginning levels where he avoided making the level long, and the ground structure being cramped at places, and very open at others, but it’s still a fairly decent level. It supports a good amount of action and isn’t too easy. Of course it could be longer, but it’s not disappointing either. Brawler wrapped this up with a 15.67 over 12.25, with constant scores from all judges, while Karyete had a span between 10 and 14.75. This was another duel with not much backstory after the results and no judgings being posted, yet it was an initial step for Brawler to get a place in the Tier list. DUEL 5: Harmless vs. dellfarm2000 Theme: Pipes Started: N/A Levels finished: April 21st Results (July 20th) Harmless' level: The Pipe Dream This level may not look brilliant from the first sight, and it fully relies on grey bricks, but it forms the classic Harmless-style path structure of going up and down, backwards and forwards repeatedly within a space of good density, not too cramped, not too wide. This level’s main weak point is the graphics of course, but it’s still an enjoyable maze level. dellfarm's level: The Pipe Maze This short level is a rather detailed pipe maze which unfortunately gets random at times, and has some extreme difficulty spikes like platforming on very small blocks (ground-pounding is useful there) and knocking big bullies from small clouds. It’s still a bit better than its score would tell. Especially since there aren’t many levels which create such a nostalgic SMB3 atmosphere like this one does. This was another duel which was set a while back after both being started and the levels being finished, and it was Harmless to win with 11.98 over 8.78. The highest score of a single judge was a 12.83, and so we have to say that this was the least quality duel in history. On the other side, the levels don’t look as bad as they’ve been judged. DUEL 6: Karyete vs. WindMasterArceus (Arceus79) Theme: Fortress Started: April 18th, 2012 Levels finished: April 28th, 2012 Results (May 26th, 2012) Karyete's level: Demolition Fort A quite short level where the fortress is only visible in basic approach and hangs loosely in the fire field background, but at least has a little bit of decoration and slopes. A typical beginner’s flaw, but the level itself is challenging to beat; it gives you something to do while you collect the three silver stars. All in all, a fairly mediocre level. Arceus' level: Team Lightning's Shock Fortress Unfortunately, this is a level with not very much effort. The scenery is rather monotonous and not well-formed, the tiling is monotonous and the door maze involves forced damage when going the wrong track, and there isn’t anything in the way of platforming or action except from the last section, which was meant to be a boss, but consists of bullet bill rows flying horizontally at you with increasing speed. The results didn’t take as long as in the previous duels, but the scores were a bit odd. Karyete won by a landslide of 12.92 to 8.98, getting six points more from both BM (Bomberman?) and Harmless, while Nwolf approximated them about par. The scores from Bomberman are quite generous, and the 5.5 from Harmless to Arceus marks the lowest single score of a judge in dueling history. DUEL 7: Volkove vs. MessengerOfDreams Theme: Unfinished Ideas Started: April 18th, 2012 Levels finished: May 17th, 2012 Results (July 20th, 2012) Volkove's Level: Into the Depths One of the most successful and addictive levels in history. You’re gonna be astonished by the way you travel between underground canals and the surface, and complete challenges with worms, underwater platforming, timed speedruns and the like. This is one of the very rare levels with potential to get a full 5/5 in Other, given the sheer amount of innovativeness and amazing block structures like the “Thwomp-in-the-Box”. Originally, this was supposed to be used for a duel with fourinone, which was scrapped due to four's inactivity. MoD's level: The Escapists It’s one of many story-legendary levels (or miniseries), but as everyone of those, it comes with something of its own. MoD planned doing a level with music themes from both Coldplay and Florence and the Machine for a while but always decided doing something else in the LDC’s 15 – 18, so he reserved it for this. He packed some fresh gameplay sections into this story such as the groups of jungle tiles with enemies and water in Part 1, or the elevator ride and the dodge of bullet bills at the beginning of Part 2. (Note that the code in the Dueling Arena Vault is broken; you have to play it on the portal). The fight of the century, that’s how this duel will always be remembered. Volkove knocked it out of the park with his best level ever, getting an 18.06/20, while MoD scored a good 16.5/20. This was the first duel whose results where posted outside of the DA, which was agreed on by the duelants due to the procrastination on their judgings. DUEL 8: -BY (Blackyoshi) vs. spookyghost (Lrmaster132) Theme: Castle Started: N/A Levels finished: July 17th, 2012 Results (August 3rd, 2012) BY's level: The Black Stone Fortress Blackyoshi himself claims this to be one of his worst works in existence, but given this being his honest estimation, it’s a statement of his skills. What starts out as an Into-the-Depths spin-off with his very own block monster turns into a sort of deep dungeon with challenges such as diving down the stacked rows of lava with short-lasting metal caps, a cannonshot past lasers and fighting bullies. You may say that the ending of this level was a bit rushed, but it’s really satisfying thus far. Lrmaster's level: Nefarious Castle of Lava One of the very few attempts of Lrmaster123 aka spookyghost to participate in a scoring event, but in this one he showed some potential. This is a showcase of a castle which has a deliberately fragile construction, vertical lava falls and a good amount of gameplay. It lacks scenery as there are no stray coins and no rocks or such and the structure is rather rough at points, but despite from that, this level has something to offer. (Note: Put the starting position to the left) It turned out to be a clear victory for BY with 15.83 over 11.58 over the unexperienced designer Lrmaster, yet this wasn’t a bad effort in his first duel as he e.g. got a 9/10 from Asterocrat in Fun. It was just that BY scored constantly well through all three criterions. This duel was the most clear win for a long time with a difference of 4.25 points until the 1-hour duel between Shroom and Peter, and it still stands as the most clear win within regular SM63 duels. DUEL 9: lordpat vs. Harmless Theme: Snow Started: August 8th, 2012 Levels finished: September 4th, 2012 Results (September 11th, 2012) lordpat's level: Chilly Paradise A level which, as its name says, is intended to reflect a very peaceful land where everyone can rest from their stresses and worries. But yet it’s not a cakewalk. The biggest gameplay highlight are the snow worms and the platforming around them, even if it’s a bit difficult at times. The landscape is a bit flat, but full of LP-trademark decoration, simply beatiful. Could have been a little bit longer, but a very nice play. Harmless' level: Blizzard Hills A combination of a rather classic snow platformer with an unoriginal plot, a sort of adventurer being stranded in these hills and separated from his mates, the Shy Guys, and therefore struggling for survival. It incorporates a plot of hallucination where the character pretends to be in water (and in the game, he is in water, but only in the game!). The journey until the water is pretty rich in variety, and unfortunately the gameplay flattens inside the water, but it gives a good play overall. Lordpat won his only regular duel so far with 16.17 over 14.42. All three judges gave him their highest score, while receiving a strong 17.25 from Nwolf and scores in the 15’s from BY and MP3. DUEL 10: Volkove vs. -BY (Blackyoshi) Theme: Cryptic Started: December 17th, 2012 Levels finished: January 11th, 2013 Results (January 14th, 2013) Volkove's level: The Vast Unknown This marks the latest completed level in the series of mystery-themed levels after the duel level Into the Depths, the famous portal level Parasite Queen, and the 21st LDC entrant The Great Abyss. This level is set in almost total emptyness with only very few structure, but plenty of action and every type of coloured brick tile serving its own purpose: blue is disabled (can be passed through), yellow is shiny, green hides at least one moving green platform, and red will burn you. The level’s structure allows you to see your goal right from the beginning, but you’ll have to traverse the entire course to reach a Rocket FLUDD. -BY's level: Derelict Factory This is one of the levels where the aim for displaying a “factory” was very finely accomplished, by the tile schemes, the flipping platforms or rows of blocks, and last but not least by its gameplay challenges which reach from hectic platforming across fire over a bully-spike challenge to a final power-up puzzle, but its biggest highlight is the room before the checkpoint, which makes fantastic use of floating device platforms. In a rather quick duel separated from the DA (it was quiet in its topic but yet it was a hit!), Volkove won with a lead of exactly 2 points, with 17.17 over 15.17. BY: “13.25 seems a bit harsh. But I will see that tomorrow then.” – well, Nwolf was far more detailed with explaining his rating than he usually is. DUEL 11: ~MP3 Amplifier~ vs. Volkove Theme: Freestyle Started: N/A (see below) Levels finished: January 4th, 2013 Results (January 30th, 2013) MP3's level: Tearing Paper Oh yes. TP. The climax of MP3’s career in terms of story-telling, creating atmosphere, balancing house areas with landscapes, and adding innovative technique especially in the final part, Works of Fire. MP3 did her best to use items in new and very original ways, such as using the edgy bottom of unblossomed cave trees to indicate paper. Music is also top notch. Volkove's level: Beyond Another segment of Volkove’s very innovative and exciting puzzle levels. It mostly consists of rooms being flipped upside down, being filled with water, or involving power caps. Each change of a room is announced with its very special arrow. There may be a few tricky spots such as letting a metal cap time out perfectly to stomp underwater blocks but not sink down, but the overall concept is amazing, especially the room layout in the second puzzle “Space Walk”, where you’re floating by the well-known green platform glitch. There is an interesting backstory behind this duel. They didn’t arrange this duel before they’ve started the levels; they’ve created the duel afterwards as both of them have made them in canceled duels; namely MP3 vs. MoD and Volkove vs. Nan. At the end, it was MP3 to triumph with an epic 18 over Volkove with a 16.875, becoming the first designer to beat Volkove in a duel and getting 3rd in the extremely competitive WITBLO12. Beyond was also entered therein, coming in at 22nd. DUEL 12: -BY (-KT) vs. Asterocrat Theme: Underground Started: August 1st, 2013 Levels finished: August 16th, 2013 Results (August 20th) -BY's level: Meta Madness Another one of these fantastic levels where -BY sparks a lot of professional detail and concept into a small space, so small that it would almost fit into a Runolympics mini-LDC. It’s a very special kind of underground (deep in the mines), but it is underground. The level’s plot has a surprising twist by collecting two red coins at first, then taking a shine but screaming out of the lava, right into a final challenge. Asterocrat's level: Mythical Hollows There aren’t many levels which can serve as a master study of graphics to be inspired of, but this is definitely one of them. The sheer effort of forming these cave hollows with temple and catacomb structures and tile mixing is incredible. The hero quest leads you through various challenges, becoming more and more beatiful the further you go. It was probably just the bit of gameplay weakness at the boss what turned the balance in favor of -BY. So, this was another epic duel which closely missed to be the best of all time, but holds the record of the closest margin of not even a tenth – it was 17.21 over 17.12 for Blackyoshi. Both levels did a great job for reviving the LDing scene, and their incredible closeness was also reflected in the WITBLO13, where they placed 13th and 12th. DUEL 13: Yurimaster vs. NanTheDark Theme: Water Started: October 7th, 2013 Levels finished: October 31st, 2013 Results (what? okay, inside spoilers inside spoilers are evil.) Yuri's level: Shallow Water Ruins This is the level that probably marks the beginning of Yuri’s extremely fast ascent to a Top Tier designer, with a level where he set up a massive landscape of cave and ruins, filling up almost the entire space, and offering three very different challenges with a lot of water techniques, such as bouncing on parakoopa shells and bringing down platforms to a lake which has to be crossed with a metal star. Exploration abilities are good to use here, and if you manage to complete everything and enter the shine room, it almost feels like an epiphany experience. Nan's level: Underwater Cave A subpar work of Nan which he wasn't able to spend much time on. It’s rather simplistic and mostly straight-forward, and the tiling is quite monotonous. But given the fact that it’s a rushed level, it could definitely have been worse. The seas feel very deep and calm, and there are sea serpents and not very much coins to refresh air, and the last segment offers a little bit of a puzzle. The music is also very well chosen and was appreciated by all judges. Yurimaster won this duel by a landslide of 14.95 to 11.75, mostly because Nan’s entry was very rushed although an extension was given to him. Some controversy arised from Harmless’ score for Yuri being far lower than the other two, due to pointing out every possible bug in Gameplay and an unjustifiedly low graphics score. Later on, Shallow Water Ruins managed to get 10th place in WITBLO13. DUEL 14: Yurimaster vs. Supershroom Theme: Pure Platformer Started: September 15th, 2014 Levels finished: September 29th, 2014 Results (October 20th, 2014) Yuri's level: Red Sun Fortress A blast, an incredible effort, far more laborious than you ever imagine a pure platformer to be. It’s a fortress under construction with the atmosphere of a final Bowser level in a Mario game, and the music supports this. It’s detailedly and continuously increasing the usage of flamethrowers, climaxing in a rising flame challenge; it’s becoming more and more difficult, but refresh spots are present as well as a checkpoint. Shroom's level: Tall Tree in the Water Forest The total opposite of its counterpart – a level set in a peaceful jungle with the music of the tutorial level of a Sonic game. It shows off various stuff around moving platforms and takes you fluently through a forest full of small water streams (yet being challenging at times), until you arrive at a tall forest you have to climb to the top. This was continued with two levels in the 29th LDC and is supposed to be the start of a longer series, however, due to unfor-tunate procrastination and other projects, the 4th level keeps stucking in approaches until now. Yuri won with this talented platformer duel with 15.91 over 14.56; both levels were held back by Raiyuuni’s scores being both in the 13’s, while Peter and Asterocrat gave 17.25’s to Yuri and Shroom’s highest score was a 15.5 by Blackyoshi. Yurimaster continued from where he stopped against NanTheDark, and for Shroom it was an important skill jump after his loss in the 27th LDC. Both levels were entered into WITBLO14. DUEL 15: MessengerOfDreams vs. Harmless Theme: Graphical Masterpiece Started: October 7th, 2013 Levels finished: November 15th, 2014 Results (December 14th, 2014) MoD's level: The Echoes of Time (already used in the 27th LDC and tweaked a bit) Echoes of Time – the very first miniseries which has far more as a plot than just a story – it’s a story revolving around a famed adventurer named Cyril Josef exploring a rather unknown but beautiful reef landscape named The Hanging Seas, combining both fantasy and real life elements. But as the fate wants it, Josef is exactly the one to continue the legacy of many worlds created by awesome designers – all the beautiful words we know to have succeeded in LDC’s and WITBLO’s, and EoT is just one of them. But this can only happen if you accept your role of being god-like and therefore decide to play Level 3A, which climaxes in one of the most beautiful and heartwarming finals that have ever been created. Harmless' level: Le Casse-Tete de la Grotte When we’ve thought we couldn’t pull off more gimmicks to create new awesome puzzles after MMMMMM and Asphodel Temple, Harmless taught us wrong. It’s very player-friendly because it allows to reset everything when necessary and doesn’t involve deaths, and it smoothly introduces you to your challenges; most of the times you’ll be working with using bullet bills to break blocks, or navigating koopa shells to red-brick surfaces which take you down (but don’t deal damage). The puzzles could have been made even more exciting, but they’re amazingly innovative. This duel was the one which took the longest time to be completed after it was settled up. Plenty of extensions, and Harmless developping his puzzle in a snail pace along other projects (including two LDC’s), and MoD scratching all previous attempts until he used his 27th LDC entry also for this duel. It was a win for him with 15.67 over 14.42, and ironically, although he tweaked his level compared to the 27th LDC, he scored a little bit lower (15.94 before). He never was really satisfied with the outcome of his series given the ambitions he had with it, but it’s successful and well-made enough to be proud of. This duel also brought both of its halfs into WITBLO14. DUEL 16: Yurimaster vs. NanTheDark Theme: Pure Platformer Started: January 23rd, 2015 Levels finished: February 16th, 2015 Results (February 24th) Yuri's level: Sandworm Domain Now this is a platformer which will really challenge you, it’s not far away from Kaizo-style and can be frustrating, but it also shows a lot of innovative gameplay, especially with the black sandworms. Most of them consist of shaky squares which will knock you away into the quicksand, but a few of them have platforms you can ride. There’s a mid-way checkpoint if you need it. Graphically, the scenery at the start is a bit too low, but the interaction of fences and bridges, the incorporation of sand into the temples and the shine sprite area are rather appealing. Nan's level: Ascent A very relaxed Pure Platformer level, like you won’t find many of them. Multi-themed in the way of Niveau Victorieux Galaxy, this level takes you smoothly up to higher places, and once again, Nan prooves his strong skill of finding good musics. The level is mostly rather easy, but it has a special attraction, the “Runouwian founds” at outlying or hidden places, where some notable users give you a nice greeting. Yurimaster defeated NanTheDark again, this time with an 18.33 over 16, the highest duel score ever. These scores are disputable, as they go outside the general trend of LDC and Duel scores, which are lower in comparison. Another heated round of controversy started, and the duel topic was locked by nin10mode to prevent further flames. On the bright side, both levels will have a secure place in WITBLO15. Category:SM63 Category:Contests Category:Opinion